Alabama

I think it would be negligent for us to not look at what to do in case the plaintiffs win

West Virginia Athletics Director Oliver Luck says the Ed O'Bannon lawsuit could have as lasting an impact on college sports as the 1984 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that stripped the NCAA of the power to sell football on TV. (The Associated Press)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- West Virginia Athletics Director Oliver Luck is a lawyer by trade and putting that into practice lately. He's combing through court documents to understand the Ed O'Bannon antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA, EA Sports and Collegiate Licensing Company over the use of college athletes' names and likenesses.

"I think this case has all sorts of potential to turn at least a part of college athletics on its head if it's successful," Luck said.

That's why Luck recently received permission to head a committee within the Big 12 to explore what college sports might look like if the suit succeeds. Lawyers for the ex-players in the suit are trying to fundamentally change how athletes are compensated by having universities share TV and licensing revenue with players.

"The committee is not so much to look at the legality of the case," Luck said. "That will be decided by the Ninth Circuit and potentially the Supreme Court. But it's more about what kind of system will we have to be looking at if the plaintiffs in this case prevail?

"We'll have to create what I imagine is some kind of national system to accomplish what all the schools and the NCAA have tried to do to promote events and generate revenue. What's the proper balance? That really is the key issue. It doesn't seem like there's much discussion on this."

Luck said he recommended the idea to Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby and expects a couple other Big 12 athletics directors to serve with him. A Big 12 spokesman said Bowlsby refers all questions about the committee to Luck.

The 3-year-old court case could still be years away from a conclusion. Currently, the plaintiffs -- comprised of ex-college athletes, including former Alabama football star Tyrone Prothro -- and the defendants are making their cases on whether the court should certify the suit as a class action.

Luck, the father of former Stanford star and No. 1 NFL draft pick Andrew Luck, said he is searching for a parallel model in amateur athletics involving payments to players that could serve as a guideline if the plaintiffs prevail.

"I've yet to find one," Luck said. "There are a lot of nuanced situations, like minor league baseball players who go professional and come back to play in school. If we lose this case, what should be done? What's a reasonable approach?

"In some cases in professional sports, players will sign over likeness nights. How is that handled? That's one of the things I'm trying to look at. There needs to be a lot more data on how image and likeness is handled."

The NCAA has said former athletes aren't restricted from making money off their name after college. The release of e-mails last month by the plaintiffs showed exasperation by some high-ranking Big 12 officials when the O'Bannon lawsuit was filed.

"This whole area of name and likeness and the NCAA is a disaster leading to catastrophe as far as I can tell," Nebraska Chancellor Harvey Perlman wrote in July 2009 to then-Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe and Texas President Bill Powers.

Powers expressed similar concerns to Beebe. "Why should we be defendants in this, rather than plaintiffs representing our students?" Powers wrote. "Again, I may have all this wrong, but we went through the same thing with the last lawsuit, and the NCAA was not bathed in glory."

In another e-mail, Texas Senior Associate Athletics Director Chris Plonsky said "we're like a version of the Army" in having to raise funds in certain ways to pay for scholarships that students expect. Plonsky added that the "entitlement attitude" created in revenue sports has resulted in lawsuits such as O'Bannon's.

"We now have threatening (student-athletes) -- many of whom, based on grad rates of the '80s and '90s, sucked a whole lot off the college athletics pipe -- and now want to buckle the system at the knees at the expense of today's (student-athletes)," Plonsky wrote.

Luck said the O'Bannon suit could have as lasting an impact as a 1984 Supreme Court decision that stripped the NCAA of its power to sell football on TV. The ruling led to the College Football Association, a consortium of 63 schools that negotiated TV rights until the SEC and Big East broke away.

"If I were talking to a group about what's the biggest unknown out there in the future of college athletics, I would say this (the O'Bannon lawsuit) would be in the top two or three," Luck said. "I think it would be negligent for us to not look at what to do in case the plaintiffs win."